MEXICO CITY \u2014 When North American leaders gathered in 2021 \u2014 at the first summit for the group in five years \u2014 the mood was upbeat. Gone was former President Donald Trump, who came to power demonizing Mexican migrants and who once called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau \u201cvery dishonest and weak.\u201d
\nBut as President Joe Biden takes part Monday in what\u2019s informally known as the \u201cThree Amigos\u201d summit, the camaraderie has begun to fade, and the post-Trump honeymoon appears to have ended.
\nDifferences over trade practices and crime have grown steadily more pronounced. In two days of closed-door meetings, the leaders are expected to hash out grievances while searching for a consensus on reducing the continent\u2019s dependence on China for crucial goods and supplies.
\n\u201cLast year, the agenda was a celebration of the fact that the so-called \u2018Three Amigos\u2019 summit was coming back after a hiatus under the Trump administration,\u201d said Ryan Berg, the director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. \u201cNow, there are a lot of tensions to unpack. It\u2019s going to be less of a feel-good summit than last year\u2019s, particularly because trade tensions have arisen and are very serious. They will be the elephant in the room for a lot of the discu
\nThe Biden administration is pressing Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador to crack down on drug cartels that have deluged the U.S. with fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that killed an estimated 72,000 people in America in 2021. Mexico is grappling with a surge in gun-related homicides and wants the U.S. to stop smugglers from sending illegal weapons into the country.
\nLooming over the summit is a worsening migration problem. Before he arrived in Mexico City on Sunday night, Biden stopped in El Paso, Texas, amid criticism from congressional Republicans that the southwest border has gotten more porous on his watch. Last week, Biden\u00a0rolled out\u00a0new immigration enforcement policies that include sending back 30,000 people a month who crossed into the U.S. illegally from Mexico, having come from places like Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti.
\nNavigating the summit will require special diplomatic finesse, given the interlocking needs of the three countries and the domestic political pressures each leader faces.
\nWith the 2024 presidential election approaching, Biden has been hammering a \u201cBuy America\u201d message. Touting a bridge project near Cincinnati last week, he said, \u201cI don\u2019t sign anything that the Congress passes unless it\u2019s buying of something American.\u201d
\nVarious foreign leaders warn that Biden\u2019s stance amounts to a form of protectionism that harms trade partners. More integration among the North American economies could provide a bulwark against Chinese economic power and help bring jobs back to the continent, analysts say.
\nUnder Biden, there has been \u201ca doubling down of this \u2018Buy America\u2019 approach,\u201d said Louise Blais, a former Canadian diplomat. \u201cAll of these things that seem to target China, however, do have collateral damage on Canada and the Mexican economy.
\n\u201cI\u2019m expecting both the Mexican president and the Canadian prime minister to raise this issue with the president \u2014 to say, \u2018Look, we need to have a more continental approach to some of these policies.\u2019\u201d
\nSince the Trump administration replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement with a new trade pact, the three countries have opened a total of 17 trade disputes with one another, according to a\u00a0briefing paper\u00a0from the Americas Society\/Council of the Americas. The U.S. has filed nine against Mexico and two against Canada.<\/p>\n